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Sing Me To Sleep, Your Sweet Poetry

A friend turned me onto Mary Oliver’s poetry a while back, and since that time I’ve been obsessed – devouring her every word, salivating over every turn of phrase, and eating up her works in the frenzy of obsession that accompanies the discovery of a great artist. Ms. Oliver has a wonderful way of placing the human experience within the natural world, heightening it but keeping it a small part of the universe. Her take on the world is calming, her words are healing, and her passion for life – for living and loving and embracing each moment we have – is an inspiration. I need to be reminded of that. A lot of us do.

I’ve been taking her to bed with me to ease a recent bout with insomnia, and she never fails to elicit a sigh or a thrill or the simple recognition of a soul who has also tasted sometimes too much, but with absolutely no regrets. She makes me want to be present, to be kinder, to be better. More importantly, she makes me want to love more, no matter what. Some of us tend to hold that back because it can hurt. Yes, love can hurt. But I’d rather be ripped apart by love than safely unaware of it. I would do all of this again, over and over, to have known what I know.